SecondWorld

EPILOGUE

The man burned from head to toe, the pain beyond anything he’d experienced before. Consciousness came and went for several minutes. He could feel his heart beating madly. His muscles, so stiff, cramped violently. But he couldn’t scream. Something was in his mouth. Down his throat!

And he was cold.

So cold.

His body shook, convulsing, but bound.

Immobilized.

A loud hiss reached his ears.

The burn increased as warm air coursed over his body.

He felt his skin tensing, and cracking, the way ice cubes do when added to a glass of warm water.

Ice.

Frozen!

He remembered.

Was this part of the thawing process? If it was, Kammler had failed to tell him about it. But he would be forgiven. The process worked! He lived! And if he had been returned to the world, it meant that his SecondWorld plan had been successful.

A sudden pain gripped his chest, followed by a surge of energy.

The tubes were pulled from his throat.

He took his first breath in seventy years. It felt good.

He smiled and felt his lip split.

Tasted his blood.

Felt alive!

He opened his eyes.

To his right stood a woman with deep blue eyes he recognized. What was her name? Adler, he believed. The mathematician. Why was she here?

To the left was a cowboy-hat-wearing man he did not recognize at all. Where is Kammler? He asked, “Wo ist Kammler?” His voice sounded raspy and wet.

“Kammler says hello,” said a man’s voice. In English. An American.

He found the man between the other two.

The man was covered in blood and sickly looking, but filled with anger.

Before he had a chance to fully comprehend what he was seeing, the man reeled back and punched him hard in the face.

Warm blood flowed down his cheek.

“He looks confused,” the cowboy said.

“Can you translate something for me?” the bloodied man said to Adler. She nodded and he said, “It has been seventy years since the war ended.”

“Es hat siebzig Jahre seit dem Ende des Krieges gewesen,” Adler repeated.

“You murdered six million Jews.”

“Sie ermordeten sechs Millionen Juden.”

“My great-grandfather was one of them.”

“Mein Urgroßvater war einer von ihnen.”

“We sometimes ask each other the hypothetical question, if you could go back in time and kill Hitler, would you?”

“Wir fragen manchmal gegenseitig die hypothetische Frage, wenn Sie wieder Zeit und konnte gehen und töten Hitler, würden Sie?”

“Would you like to know my answer?”

“Möchten Sie meine Antwort wissen?”

Instead of answering, the frozen man shouted a German curse and attempted to spit on the American, but only managed to push bloody drool out over his chin.

The American said, “My answer has always been, yes.”

“Ja,” Adler said.

“Ano,” the cowboy said in Czech.

Looking through a swollen eye, he saw the American point a gun at his face and say, “Heil Hitler. Welcome to America.”

Hitler felt a mixture of despair, fear, and all-consuming shame over his ultimate failure. But it would be over in just a moment. The American would pull the trigger, and he would escape the torment of living with his disgrace. He closed his eyes and waited for the relief death would bring.

But it never came. Hitler opened his eyes and the American lowered his weapon. The man squinted as he looked over Hitler’s face.

He saw, Hitler thought. He knows!

“But things are different now,” the American said.

Adler hesitated, surprised by the American’s change of heart, but then translated. “Aber die Dinge sind jetzt anders.”

“The Reich is destroyed. Germany is an ally. SecondWorld failed.”

“Das Reich ist zerstört. Deutschland ist ein Verbündeter. ZweiteWelt fehlgeschlagen.”

“You are just a man. Small. Nobody. Powerless.”

“Sie sind nur ein Mann. Klein. Niemand. Machtlos.”

“And I won’t kill you—”

Adler’s voice sounded surprised as she translated. “Und ich werde dich nicht töten.”

The American leaned closer. “—as much as you’d like that. I think lifetime in solitary, forgotten by the world, with nothing but your thoughts to keep you company sounds better, don’t you?”

Hitler shook with rage and indignation, but most of all, he wanted to die. As Adler translated the American’s final words, he began to weep. “No!” he screamed, and the skin at the sides of his mouth tore, but the physical pain barely registered as he thought about his future. “Mich töten! Kill me! Bitte! Bitte! No! No! Mich töten!”